The Geography Lesson: photographs and the construction of imaginative geographies

Abstract

An 1851 stereoscopic daguerreotype entitled,The Geography Lesson, frames this exploration of photography, travel and geography in the mid-nineteenth century. I argue that, at a time when travel was embraced as a way of seeing and knowing the world, photographs offered a new means of acquiring, ordering and disseminating geographical information. The role of Alexander von Humboldt in the insertion of travel into the early discourse of photography is revealed. Focusing on travel photographs taken during the formative years of photographic technology, I use the work of traveller-photographers Pierre Gustave Gaspard Joly de Lotbini ère, Maxime Du Camp and William England to show how engravings from daguerreotypes, photographically illustrated books and stereoscopic views were employed to provide visual access to sites of travel. These examples also serve to demonstrate the historicity and specificity of photographic practice. I argue that such travel photographs participated in the construction of imaginative geographies of the mid-nineteenth century world, the ancient world and the New World. I propose a framework to explain how photographs insinuated themselves into the relationship between travel and geography in two ways: as the pre-texts of travellers and as a surrogate for travel. The implications of each are discussed. I conclude by speculating uponThe Geography Lesson's lessons for historical geography.